02 October 2015
What happens when a new technology shifts the power structure, when suddenly consumers have a vehicle that allows them to exercise personal choice and the voice of the individual is empowered in new ways?
That fundamental shift has seen the almost 350-year upward trajectory of the newspaper industry suffer one of the most monumental and rapid declines in history.
Since 2001 in the US alone, about a fifth of all working journalists have lost their jobs.
And the breakneck speed of change in consumption habits is forcing newspaper companies across Europe, the US and Australia, to question the business models, products and practises that successfully sustained them for decades.
So what happens next, and what are we learning from the massive shift in the place of technology-empowered customers, who are exercising their individuality and their choices in ways that were never possible in the past?
The University of South Australia’s Hawke EU Centre will consider the future of newspapers and new notions of content, context and co-creation in its annual lecture on October 7 at 6pm at City West campus.
Senior advisor to several leading Nordic media companies keynote speaker Ralf Blomqvist will draw from his experience to deliver a talk reflecting on recent developments in Northern Europe and depict a way forward for an industry that almost lost touch with its customers.
Blomqvist will then join a panel discussion with Managing Editor of The Conversation, Misha Ketchell and Political Editor at The Advertiser, Tory Shepherd, moderated by Executive Director of the Hawke EU Centre, UniSA’s Prof Anthony Elliott.
Blomqvist has 20 years’ experience in customer-driven development initiatives across a number of industries in the Nordic countries.
He co-authored the first Swedish book on Relationship Marketing in 1993 and has become a leading innovative thinker on customer behaviour and new notions on defining the customer.
He is a partner at the Sweden-based consultancy Main Dialog AB with responsibility for key client assignments and business development.
As a speaker and thinker, he provides new knowledge to corporations, leading business schools and management development institutions across Europe.
Launched in March 2011, The Conversation is an independent source of news and views, sourced from the academic and research community and delivered direct to the public. In just four years it has grown to become one of Australia’s largest independent news and commentary sites and launched sister publications in the UK, the US, Africa and France.
The Advertiser was founded in 1858, just 22 years after the settlement of the colony of South Australia. The newspaper was acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited in 1987 and was restyled from a broadsheet to a tabloid in 1997.
Media contact: Michèle Nardelli office +61 883020966 mob 0418823673 email michele.nardelli@unisa.edu.au
